


We break everything we touch

by Ookomix



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Bro Time, Mourning, drinking your sorrow away, talking about feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 19:13:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18857338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ookomix/pseuds/Ookomix
Summary: Diego can't sleep.





	We break everything we touch

**Author's Note:**

> It's feeling time!!

In the dead of night, Diego woke up with a strangled scream stuck in his throat. He panted heavily, sweating in the tangled sheets of his bed at the Academy. Ah, yes, he had accepted to stay the night, to celebrate the end of the Apocalypse after they found the body of… What was his name? Leonard? Harold? Anyway it was done. But the pain stayed. 

Outside his room everything was silent, everyone was asleep, even Allison had eventually gotten out of her coma and was sleeping a real sleep. So, everyone but him. With a grunt, Diego pushed the covers aside, fumbling with them for a moment, and finally he got out of bed. He left his room in silence, made sure he didn’t wake anyone before going for the kitchen. He needed something like a cup of coffee or a-- a… Diego sighed. He didn’t need anything. He was messing up his sleep schedule more than ever, and if he wasn’t careful about his diet schedule too… But he  _ wanted _ coffee. Or alcohol. He settled for coffee. He knew Five had bought some during the evening, there was coffee in the house. 

When Diego entered the kitchen, he stopped at the entrance and frowned. There was light. Someone was up. He took the last step to enter the kitchen and groaned when he saw  _ who  _ was up. 

Klaus. Of course Klaus. Because Klaus couldn’t do like everyone. He never did. 

Him groaning obviously warned Klaus of his presence, and Klaus turned around a little too fast before facing him, and he looked at him like he hadn’t seen him for ten years.

“Oh, hi Diego,” he said with his usual dreamy voice, a smile appearing on his face. “Can’t sleep, uh? You’re too used to go crack skulls during the night?” The end of his question he did with a giggle, one of those dismissive giggles he was such a pro at. 

Diego frowned. Something was up. The voice, it was Klaus’ voice. Klaus used this dreamy, almost high-pitched voice, slurred and slow tone when he was hiding something. The smile. It was this smile that screamed at anyone who knew Klaus, even just a little, that it wasn’t a smile. It was a warning. A “don’t fucking ask anything, leave me be but don’t leave me alone” smile. 

“Cat got your tongue?” Klaus giggled again, and he finished his drink in one go, like it was a shot but in a old-fashioned glass. 

Diego sighed and went for the coffee pot. In silence, he made himself a mug of coffee. He didn’t ask Klaus. He knew Klaus hated the taste of coffee. He didn’t peculiarly like it either, but at least he would last the night. He didn’t want to go back to sleep, not until he was completely exhausted so he wouldn’t dream. 

“Rough night, eh?” Klaus asked. “Yes it is. A rough night. A-A- A night like that when… When’s the Apocalypse again? Tomorrow?” 

“No,” Diego said with a tired tone. “It was supposed to be. But it’s not. Remember.” 

“Ah, yes. The stabbed guy. Harry?” 

“Maybe.” 

They fell silent. Diego finished making coffee, helped himself with the mug and sipped it, then added sugar. It was too early for the bitter taste. 

“Hey, I’m going on the roof, on the garden. Wanna come?” 

Diego rose his eyes to look at his brother, Klaus was already going to the stairs with his bottle in one hand and his coat draped on his shoulders. Why not. Why the hell not. Now, what was wrong with Klaus tonight? Diego followed him up the stairs and he followed him until they arrived in the garden, in silence. Klaus settled under the tree, shivering because of the cold of the night. Diego shrugged and sat not far, but not to close so Klaus wouldn’t be tempted to try and feed a useless and one-sided conversation. He looked at the city, at the lights spread in the darkness like tiny fallen stars. At this hour there wasn’t much activity going, maybe there were thugs scattered in the darkness. Diego didn’t feel like running after them. Not…. right now. Not right now. He would, maybe, the next night. He just needed--

“Who you’re mourning?” Klaus asked out of the blue, and Diego actually blinked a few times before understanding the question.

“What? No I’m not-- It-t-t’s none of your business.” 

“Is it the cop? The girl officer?” 

Of course he fucking knew. He was the  _ fucking hostage _ , the one Eudora saved. Diego choked back tears. He couldn’t show his weakness. He was better than this. But he felt compelled to answer this question. 

“Yes.” 

“She called you Diego, not Hargreeves or… or ‘the asshole in spandex’. Who was she? A friend? Girlfriend?” In front of Diego’s evident lack of answer, he just… kept going. “Girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend.” 

“Why are you doing this, Klaus?” 

“It’s surprising, I never imagined you as a.. a  _ cop  _ dating guy. I always saw you more of a, you know, good guy bad gal, maybe a serial robber like catwoman or a hitwoman that you would chase all night and she would play with you before indulging you and then after that you two would be on a roof and in the darkest hour of the night you would throw your clothes away and--” 

“Why are you doing this,  _ Klaus _ ?” Diego repeated, this time louder. Anger was rising. 

“... What was her name?” 

“Eudora. Eudora Patch,” Diego snarled. 

“I’m sorry.” 

That felt… sincere. Diego sighed and looked at his cup of coffee. “Yeah, me too. A lot.” 

“You loved her, you still do.” 

“Thanks Sherlock. What’s with you, anyway? You’re weirder than usual.” 

“Well I  _ told you  _ but you were just dismissive and shit,” Klaus laughed, this high-pitched laugh-not a laugh that he would do when he said something that hurt. Diego turned a little to look at his brother as he continued. “You told me I was  _ lucky  _ because I could still see and talk to the ones I would lose.” 

He did say that. The veteran bar. Diego remembered. Klaus had told him that he’d lost the only person he truly loved more than himself. And Diego told him he was lucky. 

Klaus came up there to mourn too, Diego realised. But he was so deep in his self pity that he’d just erased the idea that someone could suffer as much as he did. 

“I’m sorry,” Diego said with an embarrassed tone, and an emotional distance he thought could be important, for himself of course. 

“Save it,” Klaus dropped. His dreamy voice was gone. Now there was snark. “You don’t mean it.” 

Diego stayed silent, looked down at his cup, then at the dirt on the ground, where the tree dug for its roots. He heard Klaus uncork his bottle and take a swing of alcohol. They had both lost someone the same day, he thought. But… Diego couldn’t go over the fact that if Klaus hadn’t been stupidly kidnapped, Eudora would still be alive. 

“If it wasn’t for you--” 

“She wouldn’t be dead. She took a bullet while trying to save me. I paid. I paid my fair share, dear  _ Bruder _ . By the way, I told them that not a single member of my family would come to rescue me and that they kidnapped the wrong guy as hostage against Five but they wouldn’t believe me. Now what’s your excuse for having left me to be tortured for twenty-four hours?” 

Diego stayed silent. Well, his blame backfired quickly. Suddenly he felt bad. Maybe if he had gone looking for Klaus sooner, if they had checked and cared, then maybe they wouldn’t be mourning in the rooftop of the house they both hated so much. 

“You know the worst part?” Klaus asked again. “You know the worst part about what you said? I could conjure people I miss. To talk to them. I’m just… so  _ afraid  _ of seeing them as they are. Dead. How they died, you know? Sometimes it’s gruesome. They’re all gruesome, but some are more than others. When you love someone you don’t want to see them like that, right?” 

Eudora was shot. The had bullet pierced the back and nested in her chest, blood blooming everywhere. Diego shut his eyes close tightly, tried to un-remember the sudden image dancing behind his eyes. 

“Right.” Against all odds he handed his cup with the remains of coffee and gestured at Klaus to fill it with alcohol. Klaus giggled and served him a fair amount of drink. Diego sniffed at it, it was whiskey. Probably from dad’s bar. 

“To our loved ones!” Klaus shouted a little too loud and Diego shushed him. “Sorry! Sorry…” 

“You’ve never been so talkative about feelings, shit! I thought you weren’t a romantic kind of guy. She must have been something special.” 

Klaus suddenly sobbed. One hiccup, just one sob, and Diego raised his head from his half-drank cup. Shit, he didn’t mean to--

“You’re gonna cry again?” 

“Yeah, probably.” 

“What was she like?” 

“ _ He  _ was the love of my life.” 

Diego moved a little to match Klaus’ position, and when he was fully comfortable against the bark of the tree he thought about it. Talking about feelings. 

“Okay. I never guessed you were… you know… settled. I always thought, well, again, we didn’t see each other for years.”

“Yeah, no. In this timeline I met him yesterday night.” 

Diego stared at Klaus. “I’m gonna need another drink to hear this one.” 

“You want to hear it? Really?” Again, this dreamy, slow voice. Diego sighed and, once he had his drink, he nodded. “Well, When I escaped from those psychopaths, I left through the vent with their briefcase. I ran away with it. I hoped… I hoped it was money, you know? Priceless shit assassins would carry around. It was a fucking trap. I open it, next thing I know I’m in another time another place. And there he was. Dave.” 

“You time travelled?” Diego sipped at his whiskey, slower this time. That would explain why Klaus was nowhere in sight that night. Why he had been back in the morning. “Shit. How was it?” 

“Horrifying.” 

“And Dave?” 

“Oh, no, no Dave was an angel.”

“Must be if he beared your bullshit.” 

Klaus laughed, a little more sincere this time. Diego scored a point. Klaus started talking again, Diego let him do. He seemed he needed it.

“Dave is-- He’s the reason I stayed ten horrible months in Vietnam in ‘68, you know? The army, the massive amount of walking with the gears on the back? The weather, and the bugs  _ oh god  _ the critters! Gives me chills thinking about it!”

Diego wasn’t expecting that. The Vietnam war for ten months? Then again, it explained the renewed amount of anxiety for his brother, the startles at loud sounds and the sudden interest in the sixties fashion, not that Klaus was a ‘top de la mode’ guy in the beginning. 

“Shit,” Diego simply said. 

“Yeah. But Dave… He was so… He was like the sunset every time he smiled. Kind. Caring. Smart. Strong. Oh, so quirky from time to time.” 

“He died during the war?” 

“He took a bullet. Him too.” Klaus drank directly at the bottle. “I’m surprised you believe me. I guess I’m used to being always shushed for saying bullcrap. But it’s true, it’s all true, I swear. I know that… It wasn’t my world, it wasn’t my time. No wifi, not a lot of drugs, but I wouldn’t have minded staying there my whole life if it was with him. I took the briefcase back after he died. Came home.” He drank again. “Okay, your turn. Eudora. Eudora Patch.” 

“Cute. Sexy butt.”

“Okay thanks for sharing.” 

Diego sighed. He looked at the city again. She loved it, loved everyone inside this city, if she could have she would have protected every single soul of the world. Diego drank his cup in one go, ignoring the ‘Attaboy’ Klaus gave him, and he sighed again.  _ Dave _ took a bullet while fighting. Klaus lost the love of his life, or so he said, just the day before. There wasn’t so much to say. Both their worlds had shattered at the same time. Diego wasn’t known for his empathy, he prefered that way because he felt he would be less hurt when everything would fall apart. But this situation right there was a sign. He missed Eudora so much he was drinking expensive whiskey in the cold night on the roof garden of his most hated house, all with his junkie drunkard stupid non related brother. God damn but this woman had done everything to him. From loving him to tasing him to ripping his heart out. 

“She wasn’t cute, she wasn’t lovely and-d-d-d shit you sss-say to a vain girl,” he eventually said. It surprised him. But it was too late to back down as everything he wanted to say retched out of his mouth along with his stutter and repressed feelings. “She was f-f-fff-fierce and st-t-..” he breathed. “Strong. Stubbbborn. She knew her way around knives. She was just… She was…” 

“You but cooler,” Klaus said.

“Yeah,” Diego said. “Me, but cooler. She had this… she was restrained by the law, I wasn’t. She didn’t like that. But I… I… I loved her so much, Klaus, fuck but I would have died for her. When she was smiling at me it was as ifff… as… as if I wasn’t Diego Hargreeves and I was.. I wasn’t fucked up. I mattered to someone beautiful. I felt real! I FELT FUCKING REAL WITH HER!” Tears, tears he couldn’t. So he got angry. Klaus whistled and giggled. It unsettled him. “What’s so funny to you?!” 

“You do love her dearly. Why that didn’t last?” 

“....... We were both too stubborn. Too…. Too stuck. She didn’t want to see things my way…”

“You’re an ass, you know that?” 

“I know that.” 

“We’re alone because we break everything we touch.” 

And this sentence alone, carelessly thrown out by a drunk asshole, punched Diego in the face really, really hard. It was… too deep for Klaus, too real also. Too real. And once again Klaus was silently crying against his bottle of whiskey, wiping his eyes with the back of his hands. And Diego wanted to cry, too. He should. It was… if weak, at least it was a healthy way of coping. And he realised the only one who was  _ healthily  _ dealing with something as horrifying as a loved one’s death… was Klaus. Of all people in this family. 

They really touched the bottom, didn’t they?

Diego shifted his weight to face Klaus, and he grabbed his arm to drag him closer. Klaus yelped in surprise and his usual drama, but Diego didn’t let go. He pulled his brother against him in a sort of bear hug, and didn’t let go. At first it was really, really awkward, but Number 2 was nothing if not stubborn. And eventually Klaus relaxed in his embrace and started crying again, wetting the collar of Diego’s shirt. Gosh they weren’t good at all that family thing. But they were all they had since  _ everything else they touched broke _ . They had nothing else, no one else but themselves. Their family. They almost lost it, too. And Diego couldn’t accept that. He simply couldn’t. And he promised himself he would never let a member of his family get hurt again. He wasn’t sure he would keep it, but he would try. He would try. 

The roof shook a little and both Klaus and Diego looked down at the ground, at the roots of the tree. Something was happening. 

“What was that?” Klaus asked. 

It was Pogo who replied, near the entrance of the garden.

“Boys, please, we need you downstairs… Miss Vanya has come home.” 

The brothers exchanged a glance and got up. They would mourn later. Diego had a promise to keep. 

**Author's Note:**

> It had been corrected with a sledge hammer so if you see any mistake yell at me


End file.
